This is a downwritten version of a talk I gave a few weeks ago at my church for an outreach event for women. It was inspired by a book by Glen Scrivener "The Gift". (I hope I will be able to translate this article into German soon as well.) But until then I hope you might find some time over the next couple of days as we celebrate Christmas to ponder and wonder upon these things that were happening 2000 years ago.
What was the best Christmas gift you've ever got?
I don't know what you said for the „what?“ but here's what some of you might have said for the „why?“:
Because the gift showed you that someone really seems to love you and knows what you really like or need.
Well, for me one of the best presents I've ever got has been a present I got at Christmas 2003 from my best friend in uni. It's a selfmade calendar for the year 2004 with pictures and lyrics from different books and poems in it. My friend studied Art and German literature. So you might guess that she was really good in creating such a calendar, and it WAS beautiful indeed.
But THAT's not the reason why it was such a good gift. The reason why this was a special gift is because the content pointed me to an even better gift. In fact the BEST gift of all time that is for EVERYONE!
Now I have to add that the year 2004 was the hardest year of my university time, or maybe even of my whole life.
I went through a very painful heartache because of a broken relationship to a guy.
I felt crushed and dissapointed, desperate for love, I struggled with bitterness, envy and a mild burnout, I often felt lonely, but most of all I didn't understand „Why?“ and „What now?“.
But my friend - who didn't know this yet by the time she made and gave me this present - had filled this calendar with words that were incredibly comforting to me throughout the year.
1) When God gets us alone
There's one quotation that especially spoke to me. It's from Oswald Chambers (a Scottish preacher of the early 1900) from his book "My Utmost For His Highest":
„When God gets us alone
by affliction or heartbreak, or temptation,
by disappointment, sickness,
or by thwarted affection,
by a broken friendship,or by a new friendship —
when He gets us absolutely alone,
and we are dumbfounded
and cannot ask one question,
then He begins to expound.“
This is exactly what I experienced that year. At one point within my struggle God got me alone - totally dumbfounded, speechless. I was already a Christian but God showed something new to me about himself.
I don't know what picture of God you have.
Maybe he is just a „word“ for you. a nice wishful thinking object for people who are too weak to cope with life by themselves. Or maybe he is real for you but still quite distant, somewhere out there. You don't really think much about him in your daily busyness and you assume he probably doesn't think much about you as well.
But the God that I was getting to know in this time is different.
This little quote was pointing me to a real God who was NOT distant at all, but who suddenly sat right in front of me and who was waiting for me.
He wanted me to know that he sees me and that he's there - with me, even in my lonely suffering. He wanted me to focus on and listen to him alone. It was a mindblowing discovery!
So this quote was pointing me to the God of Christmas! To Jesus!
2) Who is the God of Christmas?
Maybe you ask: "What do you mean by this?"
One passage of the bible that became very dear to my heart at this time is written by a guy called John. He wrote this:
John 1: 1 + 14:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. [...] The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Well, ...perhaps this sounds a bit confusing for you. Let me explain this passage a bit.
„The Word“ might first seem to be a very abstract „thing“. But for John „the Word“ wasn't abstract but it was a person who was with God and WAS God since the beginning of time.
And from the following verses it becomes clear that this person is Jesus Christ, God's son, who is also God. So when it reads „The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us“ John is talking about the birth of Jesus Christ, God's son, into this world. Jesus became a real human being and he lived among us. So he didn't just become an angel or something like this. He became exactly like us. He became visible, audible and even touchable. God came as close to you as the person who sits next to you. Or next time you're holding a baby in your arms - this is how close God came to you. Isn't this crazy?
This is the God we celebrate at Christmas. Through Jesus God showed us that he doesn't want to stay distant to us but that he wants to come close to us - into our suffering, darkness and loneliness.
3) But you might think: Why did he have to come down?
Isn't it enough that we have other people around us?
Yes, it's vital that we have other people who are close to us. But it's not enough. I had other people around me, but it wasn't enough. Because there are things in each of our lives that none of us can handle rightly. And no other human can ultimately handle them for us.
For instance:
- We worry about the future, because we can't control it,
- We are always concerned about what other people think of us and say about us, because we think that's the only way we can measure how much we're loved.
- We hurt people but it's really hard to say sorry or if we got hurt we struggle to forgive because we are afraid to lose our honour or our rights. So sometimes we rather sacrifice our relationships and become bitter than lose our honour.
All these things lead to all kinds of suffering. And the root of all these things is what the bible calls sin. It's our distance to God. We want to live independantly from Him.
But actually GOD is the only one who can ultimately deal with all these things.
And we were made to live under his love, protection and good guidance. So sin - our distance from God - makes us very insecure, restless and selfish people.
This is why Jesus had to come down to us. He came to bring us back to God.
But how did he do that?
First Jesus showed us how God is: Full of power and truth, mercy and grace, love and kindness, he wooed us into a relationship with God, with himself. And at the end of his life he showed us the greatest love of all, and why HE is definitely able to deal with ALL our problems – even our biggest ones:
He – who was without any sin and distance to God himself - identified himself with us so much that he took all our sin and distance from God on himself and died on the cross in our place. There he took the punishment for our sin on himself and there he went through the fiercest valley of darkness and distance from God for us.
But three days later he rose again from the dead. Until then death has been the final end for every humans. But Jesus overcame death, he overcame this distance and came back to new eternal life with God and he's now offering this new life to everyone who wants to receive him.
4) What is this new life like?
The guy John also wrote in John 1:12:
To all who did receive Him [Jesus], to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.
Children of God. This is the quality of this new life that Jesus is offering. It's the quality of his OWN life. Jesus is God's son and wants us to become his siblings. God, the king of this whole world offers us a life under His fatherly love, protection and good guidance. Not only that: He also promises us an everlasting life with him in heaven where there will be no more tears or pain. There is no better hope for the future!
And to go back to my experience from the beginning in 2004:
This is what I had to learn again: That God's love is the only one who would never ever fail me. People can and will fail me, but God's love stays firm.
I started to read the bible with different eyes that year. I learned that the God of the bible is a God who was ready to sit with me in my darkness. A God who would comfort me and carry me in my pain. He's the God who loved me so much that he even died for me.
And slowly I started to embrace this truth again, that through Jesus I was a beloved child of a loving father in heaven. I started to entrust him every corner of my life and my whole future again. I believed that he would never ever do or give anything bad to me, or would ask anything bad from me because he is my loving father and I'm his beloved child. I know this sounds repetitive, but I can't stress this enough. THIS is where all comfort and peace flow from.
And it is THIS relationship in which my heart got healed slowly and steadily from then on.
So this is why I said, that my friend's calendar pointed me to the BEST gift that is for everyone. Because it pointed me to Jesus, God's precious gift for all of us on Christmas. He is the gift that shows us that God really loves us and knows what we really like and need. Because through Jesus we can become children of God and we get the promise of eternal life.
5) What now?
If you want to find out how you could receive this gift then I want to encourage you to do 3 things:
- Talk to God. Just tell him what you think, tell him that you want to become his child, that you want to get to know him better.
- Talk to a Christian friend you know about their relationship with Jesus and ask them to help you exploring this faith. And if you don't know any Christians then find a good church where you hear God's words and people who live with him.
- Take up a Bible and start to read it, begin with a gospel, a biography of Jesus, written by eye witnesses, Maybe you can read it with a good Christian friend.
Whatever you do, I hope you will take time this Christmas season to reflect on this gift from God for you. God bless you! Merry Christmas!! :)
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